Cedar Lane at Rockville Pike will be closed for the last week of the MCPS school year, setting up the potential for worse-than-usual gridlock around Bethesda and Kensington.
State Highway officials are hoping they can get their work done before the 2014-2015 school year starts on Aug. 25. But that didn’t seem like a sure thing on Tuesday, when SHA employees in charge of the project met with residents.
The SHA hopes to have the project done by Friday, Aug. 22.
The Cedar Lane closure will allow SHA crews to demolish a section of roadway just east of Rockville Pike to build two new lanes — a left-turn only and thru lane — to help ease traffic back-ups heading to Naval Support Activity Bethesda and NIH each morning.
SHA engineer for construction Kevin Nowak said the complete road closure starting Friday, June 6 is necessary because the project involves rebuilding a culvert that allows a small stream to flow under the road.
“This way we get in and get out with the closure of the entire roadway,” Nowak said. “If we were going to do this thing in stages, I’d keep everybody up at night. It would be very inefficient. It would take a two-and-a-half month project as I have now and turn it into probably over a year — just to accommodate all this traffic.”
Cedar Lane will be closed for just 1,000 feet, to nearby Elmhirst Parkway. But the official detour, to be publicized and set up by the SHA, will take traffic a few miles north along two-lane Knowles Avenue and Strathmore Avenue in Kensington and Garrett Park.
Nowak said the SHA couldn’t have known there would be so much snow this winter as to extend the MCPS school year. But the MCPS school year was only extended one day. The last day of school was originally scheduled for Thursday, June 12, meaning the Cedar Lane closure would have affected school bus travel regardless.
A SHA spokesperson said the agency was in communication with MCPS about the Cedar Lane closure. With MCPS input, the SHA decided it would be better to close Cedar Lane during the last week of school than during the traditionally more busy first week of the next school year.
Eric Osberg, director of finance and operations for the Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, said the all-girls Catholic school at the Cedar Lane/Rockville Pike intersection has also been in contact with SHA.
Stone Ridge’s last day of school is May 30 and its graduation is set for June 5. The $15.8 million lane addition and culvert project will mean the taking of one of Stone Ridge’s entrances and will cause some disruption for the school’s summer camps and year-round staff.
The school will get something out of the project. The SHA will install a traffic signal at Elmhirst Parkway and build a portion of a new road at the intersection that will act as a new entrance for Stone Ridge and complement the school’s new turf field. The school broke ground on the turf field last week and hopes to get much of the construction done over the summer.
Stone Ridge’s first day of classes for its upper school is Tuesday, September 2. The middle school and lower school start the next day.
“We hope the project is done by the next school year,” Osberg said. “That’s our prime concern.”
There’s little buffer time for the project to run long. It’s possible Cedar Lane will be reopened before the Aug. 22 date provided.
Nowak said crews started diverting the stream early this year because environmental restrictions prohibit disturbing the site while fish start spawning in March.
The project was funded by $14.6 million worth of federal money, part of a host of federally funded projects meant to alleviate traffic congestion brought on by the 2011 Walter Reed merger with the Naval Hospital.
The existing three lanes of Cedar Lane going westbound into the Rockville Pike intersection will be turned into four, with two left-only turn lanes, one thru-only lane and the same “choice” lane to allow drivers to go straight through or turn right that exists today.
The broader project includes two new thru lanes and a new left only turn lane on eastbound Cedar Lane on the opposite side of the intersection. It also includes the addition of a third thru lane on northbound Rockville Pike.
The Cedar Lane/Rockville Pike intersection has become the afternoon rush hour choking point for what’s turned into a notoriously traffic-clogged section of Rockville Pike between NSAB and NIH.
“There’s going to be a period of time where there are going to be some inconveniences to make the investment for the greater long-term benefit,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen said at a press event on Monday to celebrate a number of BRAC-related road projects around the state. “But as you see certain road closures, we hope that the representatives who are here from the community will work with us to make sure that everybody in this area knows that the idea is that at the end of the day, everybody will be better off.”
Richard Levine, a leader of the Locust Hill Neighborhood just northeast of the Cedar Lane intersection, has been outspoken with his concerns that the closure will mean commuters cutting through the neighborhood.
He seemed satisfied on Tuesday night upon learning there will be barriers set up along Cedar Lane to prevent that from happening.
“That seems to be the plan,” Levine said. “Hopefully that happens. But come back on the Monday after the closure. People like exploring.”
Photo via J.D. Mack
